Timeline 348
- January. Tesla brought the Roadster to
Arvidsjaur, Sweden, to see if it could
survive winter conditions - February. 205 employees. Tesla began to
build a validation prototype (VP), where
they took everything they learned from
the engineering prototype. Tesla says it
will build a $35 million plant in Albu-
querque, to produce the Model S - March. 230 employees and they finished
the VP 1 - April. Raised more money - a series D
round led by Elon Musk, Technology
Partners, and Vantage Point - June. Tesla’s motor factory in Taiwan
was finished and it began producing parts - July. A new transmission was finished
- August. Tesla finished the VP 10. CEO
Martin Eberhard was replaced by Tesla
investor Michael Marks, who would work
as an interim-CEO until Tesla found a
long-term CEO - September. Tesla delayed the launch of
the Roadster because they needed more
time to test its durability - October. It turned out that also the new
transmission failed in the durability test.
Tesla needed yet another transmission - November. Martin Eberhard had to leave
the company